Dear Bubs: 26 months

Dear Bubs,

I'm in awe of how fast you're picking up things from us and the people around you. When you see other children doing something, you immediately want to do the same. We were at a book store and you saw a little boy perched at the edge of the magazine rack reading a book. You picked up a book, sat next to the boy and stared at him, imitating him so perfectly that we wanted to giggle.

Your memory can put Daddy's and mine to shame. Daddy charged your iPod touch and left it somewhere in his study but couldn't find it. You were asking for it but we kept fobbing you off with excuses while we were searching high and low for it for days. I jokingly asked you, "Bubs, did you see where the iPod was?" We stared in disbelief when you went to the recliner and dug it out from under a pile of cushions even though you hadn't seen it in 2 whole days!

When you were a baby, I read forums about how babies on a balanced, fruit and veggie heavy diet grow up to eating any kind of (healthy) food on their plate, they eschewed sweet stuff to the point they actually spat out ice cream because it was too sweet for them. So I embraced this concept and made you lots of fruit and veggies purees when you were weaning. Even the very first food you ate was a mashed up avocado.

Ironically, you despise most veggies now. When you see something suspiciously green in your bowl, you say "Mai veggie (no veggies)" and push the bowl back to us. It takes a LOT of coaxing to get you to eat anything green and leafy. Spit out ice cream? Hah. You fight with us for it like there's no tomorrow when we share a bowl together.  Food wise - you inherited my sweet tooth for sure.

Before you were born, Daddy and I agreed that we'd speak to you in English and Por Por and Gong Gong (paternal grandparents) would speak to you in Mandarin so you could pick up a couple of languages. While we know that you can understand when spoken to and you can speak short sentences in each language, you surprised us by being able to do simple translations. You asked Por Por for a glass of "soya bean milk" in English. When Lau Mah (Great Grandma) who speaks no English asked what were you drinking, you replied "tau chooi" (soya bean milk in Teochew).

Once I asked you in English, "Where does Uncle How live?" I didn't quite expect you to know the answer because I've never told you where he lives but you answered swiftly "ket lah poh" (Kuala Lumpur). I'm still a little astounded that you managed to translate what Por Por has been teaching you in Mandarin to be able to understand my question in English. I think you're bilingual (still on the fence about that) but you are very used to us speaking a fixed language to you. I tested you the other day by speaking to you in Mandarin. Though you understood, you gave me a mummy's-being-very-weird smile.

You now recognise all the letters of the alphabet, know most of your colours and count from 1 to 10. Your favourite thing to do now is to push the buttons on the lift and you're quite adept at holding onto your ring float in the pool while kicking your legs to move around fearlessly. Hoping that you'd take to swimming a lot faster than I did!
 
You can sing the alphabet, a few nursery rhymes like Baa Baa Black Sheep, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and of course, your own variations ;) Your favourite song currently is Jason Mraz's I Won't Give Up which you call as "Daddy's Song" because Daddy has been playing this song repeatedly and you occasionally shout out smatterings of the song "skies get rough", "I won't give up". What you lack in tune, you definitely make up with gusto.

Now that your hand eye coordination has improved, you really enjoy having us sit next to you and build stuff with Duplo. You can now fix the blocks together. I'm still undecided if we should add more Duplo blocks for you or if should we get Lego for you (please don't eat them). We've also tried stringing wooden beads together. I'm terrible when it comes to arts and crafts so I'm hoping it's something we can learn together along the way.

You've lost most of your baby fat and the only squishy thing left are your chipmunk cheeks. My heart sings each time I see them wobble when you run and sometimes I wish you weren't growing up so fast. I love how you look at Daddy and me with wonder in your innocent eyes and wish we could freeze frame time for a little longer.

Love,
Mummy.